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I visited Moscow for the first time in 1964. The Cold War was in full swing. I was still at school, learning beginners' Russian. I returned a few years later as a graduate student. By this point I was hopelessly infected with an incurable and progressive disease: curiosity about the Soviet Union under communism. I was full of questions, many of which could not be answered for decades, until communist rule collapsed. Becoming a professional scholar, I spent the next half-century studying the history, economics, and politics of communist societies. The biggest obstacle was always secrecy, so it seems fitting that the system of secrecy is the topic of my most recent book.
This is one of two books I kept by my bedside during my three years as head of an academic department.
It taught me how building a network of peers and a loyal team of subordinates are keys to survival under a suspicious boss. Berliner based his work on hundreds of interviews of managers who left the Soviet Union before, during, and after World War II. From a scholarly point of view, the book contains astonishing detail and insights from the inside of the Soviet system in its most secretive and repressive period.
I visited Moscow for the first time in 1964. The Cold War was in full swing. I was still at school, learning beginners' Russian. I returned a few years later as a graduate student. By this point I was hopelessly infected with an incurable and progressive disease: curiosity about the Soviet Union under communism. I was full of questions, many of which could not be answered for decades, until communist rule collapsed. Becoming a professional scholar, I spent the next half-century studying the history, economics, and politics of communist societies. The biggest obstacle was always secrecy, so it seems fitting that the system of secrecy is the topic of my most recent book.
This is the other book I kept by my bedside during my three years as head of an academic department.
Every year (until 1937), Stalin took a long working holiday by the Black Sea. His secret line of communication with his subordinates in Moscow relied on daily handwritten letters and couriers. The letters were preserved and are translated and edited in this book. The collection taught me how a suspicious boss micromanages his subordinates and keeps close those he trusts least.
Stalin habitually complained that they overloaded him with trivia, but then complained and corrected them if they showed the smallest initiative. I learned a lot about how Stalin saw his enemies, and I was introduced to the concept of the “unconscious” enemy. For myself, I learned that trust is essential to effective delegation.
From 1931 to 1936, Stalin vacationed at his Black Sea residence for two to three months each year. While away from Moscow, he relied on correspondence with his subordinates to receive information, watch over the work of the Politburo and the government, give orders, and express his opinions. This book publishes for the first time translations of 177 handwritten letters and coded telegrams exchanged during this period between Stalin and his most highly trusted deputy, Lazar Kaganovich.
The unique and revealing collection of letters-all previously classified top secret-provides a dramatic account of the mainsprings of Soviet policy while Stalin was…
I visited Moscow for the first time in 1964. The Cold War was in full swing. I was still at school, learning beginners' Russian. I returned a few years later as a graduate student. By this point I was hopelessly infected with an incurable and progressive disease: curiosity about the Soviet Union under communism. I was full of questions, many of which could not be answered for decades, until communist rule collapsed. Becoming a professional scholar, I spent the next half-century studying the history, economics, and politics of communist societies. The biggest obstacle was always secrecy, so it seems fitting that the system of secrecy is the topic of my most recent book.
This is the best (to be fair, the only) English-language novel about how the Soviet economy was supposed to work and how it actually worked in the 1950s and 1960s. (The author says it is “not a novel” but a Russian fairytale.)
I was reluctant to read it, and expected to find fault with it, but I found it both moving and utterly convincing. It has all the ingredients of a war story: the various characters are trying to survive, to find love, to protect their families, to serve the nation, or to better humanity, while being ground between the wheels of great-power politics and everyday existence.
The book’s only omission (I learned later, after years of research) is that it does not account sufficiently for the role of the secret police in Soviet-era workplace surveillance and the selection of managers.
'Bizarre and quite brilliant.' Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times
'Thrilling.' Michael Burleigh, Sunday Telegraph
'Francis Spufford has one of the most original minds in contemporary literature.' Nick Hornby
The Soviet Union was founded on a fairytale. It was built on 20th-century magic called 'the planned economy', which was going to gush forth an abundance of good things that the penny-pinching lands of capitalism could never match. And just for a little while, in the heady years of the late 1950s, the magic seemed to be working.
Red Plenty is about that moment in history, and how it came, and how it…
Tap Dancing on Everest, part coming-of-age memoir, part true-survival adventure story, is about a young medical student, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor raised in N.Y.C., who battles self-doubt to serve as the doctor—and only woman—on a remote Everest climb in Tibet.
I visited Moscow for the first time in 1964. The Cold War was in full swing. I was still at school, learning beginners' Russian. I returned a few years later as a graduate student. By this point I was hopelessly infected with an incurable and progressive disease: curiosity about the Soviet Union under communism. I was full of questions, many of which could not be answered for decades, until communist rule collapsed. Becoming a professional scholar, I spent the next half-century studying the history, economics, and politics of communist societies. The biggest obstacle was always secrecy, so it seems fitting that the system of secrecy is the topic of my most recent book.
Stalin’s secret police was responsible for both foreign espionage and domestic repression. Until recently its domestic operations were a black box. This book unlocks the box.
It shows how and why quotas for executions arose, how the “productivity” (arrests and executions in a period of time) of secret police officers could rise and fall by an order of magnitude over a year or so, and why it made sense to detain or kill people in very large numbers “just in case.” The book’s patient investigations and logical deductions provide a contrast to the miserable fates of the human victims.
This original analysis of the workings of Soviet state security organs under Lenin and Stalin addresses a series of questions that have long resisted satisfactory answers. Why did political repression affect so many people, most of them ordinary citizens? Why did repression come in waves or cycles? Why were economic and petty crimes regarded as political crimes? What was the reason for relying on extra-judicial tribunals? And what motivated the extreme harshness of punishments, including the widespread use of the death penalty?
Through an approach that synthesizes history and economics, Paul Gregory develops systematic explanations for the way terror was…
I have been interested in the nature of scientific discovery, in scientific discoverers, and in particular in how science may operate and even be successful under oppressive regimes. I have lived under a variety of political systems, which has strengthened this personal interest. I have known a number of the heroes of these books and have written about them, too.
For me, the most interesting aspect of this autobiography is its honesty. I already knew a lot about Sakharov when I read this book. I learned about Sakharov’s development that he was initially a devoted team member providing the most lethal weapons to a dictatorship, and how he evolved and eventually became a most fearless and forceful human rights advocate in a ruthless dictatorship—in the post-Stalin Soviet era.
I learned how he had opposed the Soviet leader Khrushchev and how he then became enemy No. 1 of the regime under Brezhnev. I found it also instructive how Gorbachev continued playing the role of his predecessors and how he found a formidable opponent in Sakharov. All this I find sadly relevant when I look at today’s Russia and its dictator.
The late Soviet physicist, activist, and Nobel laureate describes his upbringing, scientific work, rejection of Soviet repression, peace and human rights concerns, marriage and family, and persecution by the KGB
I have been interested in the nature of scientific discovery, in scientific discoverers, and in particular in how science may operate and even be successful under oppressive regimes. I have lived under a variety of political systems, which has strengthened this personal interest. I have known a number of the heroes of these books and have written about them, too.
I find it fascinating how rich a source Russia has been for talent and how poorly it has utilized them or ejected them. I liked Gamow’s personality and his informal style. Most of all, I find it amazing how multifaceted his talent was and that he was not afraid to come up with ideas—some fruitful, some mistaken, but always original—in any area of science, regardless of whether he had the proper training in it or not.
The only disappointment was that the autobiography stopped at one point. To me, Gamow symbolizes one of the most important characteristics of scientists: curiosity. In addition, I learned a great deal about the conditions for science in the early period of the Soviet Union.
George Gamow, a theoretical physicist and cosmologist and an early advocate and developer of Lemaître's Big Bang theory. was awarded the Kalinga Prize by UNESCO for his popularization of science. Born in Odessa, Russia, he was a colleague of Albert Einstein, Marie Curie, Peter Kapitza and Francis Crick. He was a fellow at Cambridge, Univ. of Copenhagen, Univ. of Leningrad, Univ. of London, Washington Univ. (Wash., DC), Univ. of California, Berkeley, and Univ. of Colorado. My World Line is an intimate portrait of an unorthodox, witty and warm man, whose free spirit and creative intuition endeared him to his colleagues…
"Captain Charles Kennedy" parachuted into a moonlit Austrian forest and searched frantically for his lost radio set. His real name was Leo Hillman and he was a Jewish refugee from Vienna. He was going home. Men and women of Churchill’s secret Special Operations Executive worked to free Austria from Hitler's…
I have been interested in the nature of scientific discovery, in scientific discoverers, and in particular in how science may operate and even be successful under oppressive regimes. I have lived under a variety of political systems, which has strengthened this personal interest. I have known a number of the heroes of these books and have written about them, too.
From this book, I learned about a most tragic figure in twentieth-century science and a ruthless political system willing to annihilate its best resources to isolate itself from even the slightest Western democratic influence.
I find it improbable how scientists in the early development of the Stalin regime believed in the power of truth and were willing to sacrifice themselves for the greater good. I find it sadly relevant how many scientists were willing to close their eyes on injustice or become accomplices.
I have been interested in the nature of scientific discovery, in scientific discoverers, and in particular in how science may operate and even be successful under oppressive regimes. I have lived under a variety of political systems, which has strengthened this personal interest. I have known a number of the heroes of these books and have written about them, too.
I find Petr Kapitza a hero, and this book provides both his personal and societal background and his science and actions. I am fascinated by a scientist who, amid conditions of the Soviet system, remained indifferent to titles and positions but was not afraid to use his international recognition to protest the actions of one of the world’s worst dictators.
I also found the book's message about Kapitza to be most convincing in the contribution of one of the editors, David Shoenberg, who had a close relationship with Kapitza and was a significant scientist and discoverer.
The unusual career of the famous Soviet physicist Peter Kapitza was divided between Cambridge and Moscow. In Cambridge he was a protege of Rutherford and while studying there he opened up a new area of research in magnetism and low temperature physics. However, in 1934, during a summer visit to the Soviet Union, Kapitza was prevented from returning to Cambridge and remained in Moscow for the rest of his long life. In spite of many ups and downs and considerable difficulties in his relations with top political figures in the Kremlin, he continued to enhance his scientific reputation and late…
Even before recently becoming a dad, I was passionate about reducing the risks of nuclear war. I am also firmly committed to pursuing—yet never fully knowing—the answers when it comes to achieving that. I think that trying to figure out why things happened as they did in the Cold War can sometimes help illuminate partial answers. The late Michael Krepon referred to the period 1985–1992 as the high tide of nuclear agreements and risk reduction, and I retain optimism that it can happen again. Deterrence is equally important. I have spent the past decade working on historical projects covering national security and negotiating sides of the Cold War equation.
Togzhan Kassenova’s book tells the story of one of the overlooked crimes of the twentieth century: the Soviet Union’s assault on Kazakhstan through careless nuclear testing—this devasted generations of Kazakhs and other non-Russian people. Kassenova also shows the terrifying prospects of what the collapse of the Soviet Union could have entailed.
There were unexploded nuclear devices buried underground and unguarded highly-enriched uranium that very bad people wanted to acquire to build their own bombs. Motivated by its history as a nuclear playground, Kazakhstan contributed to one of the great miracles of our time: the non-proliferation of the massive Soviet nuclear stockpile (some 27,000 warheads at the end of the Cold War) throughout the 1990s. Policymakers rightly worry about states like Iran and North Korea—as they rightly worried about Libya and Iraq in the 1990s and early 2000s.
For the most part, the AQ Khan network—not the Soviet arsenal—made those fears…
Atomic Steppe tells the untold true story of how the obscure country of Kazakhstan said no to the most powerful weapons in human history. With the fall of the Soviet Union, the marginalized Central Asian republic suddenly found itself with the world's fourth largest nuclear arsenal on its territory. Would it give up these fire-ready weapons-or try to become a Central Asian North Korea?
This book takes us inside Kazakhstan's extraordinary and little-known nuclear history from the Soviet period to the present. For Soviet officials, Kazakhstan's steppe was not an ecological marvel or beloved homeland, but an empty patch of…
By the time I was a high-school junior I knew I wanted to be a physicist. As a graduate student in 1950, as the Cold War was heating up, I joined the relatively small team that designed the first hydrogen bomb and got to work with some of the giants of 20th-century physics. It’s been a pleasure to read about this subject as well as to write about it.
This follow-up to his definitive The Making of the Atomic Bomb covers it all—the people, the physics, and the politics. Richard Rhodes does his research, no question.
The book’s very breadth makes it less engrossing than some books with a narrower focus. Nevertheless, it’s a must for an “H-bomb library.”
Here, for the first time, in a brilliant, panoramic portrait by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb, is the definitive, often shocking story of the politics and the science behind the development of the hydrogen bomb and the birth of the Cold War.
Based on secret files in the United States and the former Soviet Union, this monumental work of history discloses how and why the United States decided to create the bomb that would dominate world politics for more than forty years.